So, after the translations of He Jin's biography and Huangfu Song's biography, here's another translation of a prominent Later Han general. After He Jin and Huangfu Song, two men who are probably mostly known for their Yellow Turban campaign (to me at least), I thought it would be fitting to do Zhu Jun next.

Zhu Jun's official biography is in chapter 71 of the History of the Later Han, which you can see here. He shares the chapter with Huangfu Song, so Fan Ye's comments at the end are about both Jun and Song.

Like before, I'm stil "crossing the t's and dotting the i's" (so let me know if you find something odd), but currently it should already be properly readable.

As for the black mountain bandits section, you probably should mention that Zhang Yan was originally named Chu Yan. When the original leader Zhang Niujue died in 185 and picked Chu Yan as his replacement, Chu Yan changed his family name to Zhang in honor of Zhang Niujue.

Unless I specifically say otherwise, assume I am talking about historical Three Kingdoms, and not the novel.

“You, are a rebellious son who abandoned his father. You are a cruel brigand who murdered his lord. How can Heaven and Earth put up with you for long? And unless you die soon, how can you face the sight of men?”

I had read most of this before on your wiki a couple weeks ago when I was researching Zhu Jun's rise, it was an excellent read and the added notes make it even better. Though there's a lot of talk about austerity, nobility, and the like during the Fall of the Later Han, was social class fluid? I see this in Zhu Jun's rise, Sun Jian's rise, and the list goes on when you get into the Three Kingdoms proper.

As you know security is mortal's greatest enemy.

SimRTK is back up in a testing phase! Go ahead and give it a look over on the Simzhou forum branch.

In theory, government slots are open to everyone, whether noble or peasant, rich or poor.

In practice, higher-ranked people are more likely to know people with influence, and poorer poeople may be too busy feeding their family to afford to take the imperial examination.

But even so, poor people can still reach high ranks through talent or luck; Liu Bei, was a shoe-seller, Deng Ai was a farmer, and He Jin was a butcher, yet all three reached very high ranks.

I'd have to study things to be certain, but I have a feeling that advancement like this was more common in China than than in medieval Europe, simply because nobles in medieval Europe would marry other nobles (to the point where morganatic marriages were often a succession-breaking thing)

Unless I specifically say otherwise, assume I am talking about historical Three Kingdoms, and not the novel.

The civil war did make things more meritocratic but even in the Han, one could rise up fairly high from poor background (maybe not the very highest ranks once Ling instituted the "fine" for getting one) either through miliatry advancement or civil route (but if your too poor for education, might not be an option). The gentry weren't opposed to it as such but they did look to close down alternative routes of advancement and obvious if your wealthy, the best training, the influence here and there, money for bribes, the system did favour the old guard.

“You, are a rebellious son who abandoned his father. You are a cruel brigand who murdered his lord. How can Heaven and Earth put up with you for long? And unless you die soon, how can you face the sight of men?”